op or suppress
function, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of its
immense influence in Evolution, there is no need now to speak. But
Environment is now acknowledged to be one of the most potent factors in
the Evolution of Life. The influence of Environment too seems to
increase rather than diminish as we approach the higher forms of being.
The highest forms are the most mobile; their capacity of change is the
greatest; they are, in short, most easily acted on by Environment. And
not only are the highest organisms the most mobile, but the highest part
of the highest organisms are more mobile than the lower. Environment can
do little, comparatively, in the direction of inducing variation in the
body of a child: but how plastic is its mind! How infinitely sensitive
is its soul! How infallibly can it be turned to music or to dissonance
by the moral harmony or discord of its outward lot! How decisively
indeed are we not all formed and moulded, made or unmade, by external
circumstance! Might we not all confess with Ulysses--

"I am a part of all that I have met."

Much more, then, shall we look for the influence of Environment on the
spiritual nature of him who has opened correspondence with God. Reaching
out his eager and quickened faculties to the spiritual world around him,
shall he not become spiritual? In vital contact with Holiness, shall he
not become holy? Breathing now an atmosphere of ineffable Purity, shall
he miss becoming pure? Walking with God from day to day, shall he fail
to be taught of God?

Growth in grace is sometimes described as a strange, mystical, and
unintelligible process. It is mystical, but neither strange nor
unintelligible. It proceeds according to Natural Law, and the leading
factor in sanctification is Influence of Environment. The possibility of
it depends upon the mobility of the organism; the result, on the extent
and frequency of certain correspondences. These facts insensibly lead on
to a further suggestion. Is it not possible that these biological truths
may carry with them the clue to still profounder philosophy--even that
of Regeneration?

Evolutionists tell us that by the influence of environment certain
aquatic animals have become adapted to a terrestrial mode of life.
Breathing normally by gills, as the result and reward of a continued
effort carried on from generation to generation to inspire the air of
heaven direct, they have slowly acquired the lung-func